Puerto Maldonado, late December 2018

[cranefly]

I thought they were called 'bullet' ants because they were big as bullets.

Well, they're big, up to 1.2 inches, but there's other ants just as big but harmless, or much less painful.

The naturalist who named them did so after conducting tests with volunteers, blindfolding them and then simultaneously shooting them in one arm with a 38 caliber pistol and stinging them with a bullet ant in the other arm.  The volunteers could not distinguish them with any degree of accuracy.

Okay, I made that up about the tests, but they are so named for being painful as a bullet strike, though it's a hard analogy for most people to relate to.